Broker-dealers increasingly make available to their customers on-line submission, cancellation, and tracking of the status of orders for securities. Securities trading customers include day traders, institutions, and active private investors. Such customers make many quick decisions regarding when and from whom to order securities. Customers are increasingly demanding regarding quality and speed of execution. Customers require a high quality of information to support their decision-making. Customers are often presented with quotes identifying markets from which particular securities can be bought or sold at particular prices. In such quotes there are often several markets quoting securities at the current inside price. Markets quoting the same price, however, are not the same in terms of quality of execution. Especially regarding speed, all markets are different. It would be useful, therefore, if customers had a display of information helpful in identifying which markets are likely to execute orders more quickly than others.
Modern broker-dealers often subscribe to one or more exchanges or ECNs (“markets”) capable of executing orders for securities by matching orders with orders of opposite side. Orders, cancellations, and responses are communicated to and from markets by use of data communications ports. Many broker-dealers handle volumes of orders so large as to require more than one port per market. Ports often are not equal in their ability to communicate with a particular market. Sometimes ports fail, partially or completely. It would be useful to have a display of information, for diagnostic purposes within the broker-dealer organizations, to help identify problems with particular ports, to help keep the overall flow of data communications functioning efficiently.